It was Christmas
by Aunt Ginny Potter
Summary: Couldn't a guy (and the rest of his team) stay in the office on Christmas Eve without getting the third degree? But there was a story there, and despite Tony's opinionated protests, like a good member of Team Gibbs, Bishop wanted to know what it was. She thought she'd earned the right to be in the loop - and that was how the evening turned into the Meeting of the Unwilling Sharing.


**A\N: First of all, if you spot any mistake in cannon, **_**please **_**tell me. Earlier seasons' storylines are a little fuzzy to me, because NCIS is a fairly recent addiction of mine. (Stuff like Sarah's relationship with their father). Secondly, fair warning: this is very clearly TIVA, although only explicitly in the end, as I was told to warn. Also, this is not meant as indulgence for Bishop-hatred; I have nothing against the character except that she replaced Ziva, and, well, if it had to happen, it had to happen.**

**Okay, now that that's settled, this one came to me ages ago, and I meant to post it on Christmas (obviously, that worked out pretty well). Well, better late, right?**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own NCIS.**

* * *

It was Christmas Eve.

It was a very clear explanation, with an even clearer truth behind it. It was why people hurried around to get to their loved ones, get last-minute gifts. That harassed hustle still hung in the air, but it was running out. Soon, everyone would be relaxing, because the hurrying everywhere and buying everything would come to an end, and they would get to enjoy what they had been working toward the last few days.

Soon, they would be in their homes, their families' homes, exchanging pleasantries and laughter by the light of the fireplace's fire. Children running around, sneaking looks at the wrapped boxes underneath the Christmas trees, while the adults talked and drank and enjoyed the days off.

But to every rule there was an exception, and to every mass of people there was a group that strayed from the path of the herd. In the Navy Yard, a team of four (always four, except when they were three) was taking care of the last details possible to their closed case. And it may have been a coincidence, but this year, all of them shared a lack of an urge to leave. (And there was one who didn't believe in coincidences, but that was okay. He didn't question it. After all, being one of them, that day, he didn't want to go home either.)

And so they were putting every dot in its 'i', every cross in its 't'. Delaying what they usually complained about not being able to do, they worked silently, because conversation encouraged the sharing of information, and no one wanted to tell anyone that they weren't nearly as bothered about staying put as they'd have everyone else believe.

No one checked the time, because that served the same purpose. The tiny lamps were, however, their only source of light, so they weren't fooled into thinking it was anywhere near time to wrap-up work. No, that time had been hours and hours ago.

But one of them was finished. She was twitching, trying to find something, anything, that meant a couple extra hours in there. And there was nothing. As a matter of fact, she was pretty sure that there would be nothing for about a month. No pending reports, no unfiled files, not even her personnel sheet needed an update.

So Bishop looked around at her coworkers. And her eye fell on Tony, clicking with clear focus on his mouse, face furiously concentrated on his screen.

He was playing. Yes, he was definitely playing a game. Instead of going home on Christmas Eve. Bishop frowned, and her attention strayed to Gibbs. Because Gibbs wasn't saying anything about it. And Gibbs was… Gibbs was cleaning his drawers. Throwing out paper, taking things off and putting them back.

Now her eyes were starting to widen. Did no one in this team go home on Christmas? What had _she _signed up for?

But McGee was still working… She thought, anyway. He was typing away, that was for sure. But, through enough interactions with him and Abby, she knew that that meant nothing.

She looked around at the three of them, and no one looked back. Gibbs was probably the only one that had noticed, and he just ignored her. She stared at him.

"Don't you want to go home?"

Gibbs didn't even glance up, but a loud screech and a curse told her that Tony had, and that he'd also jumped in the process.

"No startling people, Bishop." He scolded with the voice of someone talking to a young child, and didn't acknowledge her further, returning to his computer.

And her question was left unanswered.

"McGee?" She pressed, because she wasn't stupid enough to insist with Gibbs (not anymore anyway), and Tony's tone had already made clear that, besides being in a snarky mood today, he had zero intention of answering anything she asked.

McGee's eyes jumped to her a little guiltily. "Don't you?" He retorted.

Staring contest. She was at least good enough at these to win against McGee. He looked away, shrugging a little uncomfortably.

"Sarah told me she got into a fight with my father. And, uh, she, using my dad's words, 'stormed out of the house like a kid on a tantrum'. She's at a friend's house." He made a face. "My dad's way of lifting Christmas cheer. My grandmother told me it wasn't pretty. I… I don't really feel like going there right now, and I don't wanna go home to spend Christmas alone. She won't take my calls, but I could reach her friend, and she says Sarah's refusing to leave until morning. I'll have enough to deal with then, trust me."

Bishop winced, and Tony's relentless murdering of the keyboard stopped. But McGee being truthful and admitting what they were all thinking (no one wanted to go home) seemed to work, because Tony wasn't pretending to be doing anything now (well, anything productive).

"Sorry." She mumbled.

"No apologizing." Gibbs threw from where he was clearly paying close attention to the conversation. He didn't really look up.

Bishop was awfully tempted to apologize again.

"So how about you?" She asked unthinkingly. She reddened when Gibbs looked up at her with narrowed eyes and raised eyebrows (somehow, he could do both). "I- I m-mean, why haven't you go-" And Gibbs was already looking down again, completely ignoring her.

Or so she thought. "Taking care of what I don't need anymore." Very inspiring.

To get her mind off her unwilling boss again, she turned to Tony. "Well, no use pretending." She shrugged. "None of us wants to go home, for some reason. Why?"

"Don't know what you're talking about, Bishop." Gibbs again answered to the silence, casually. "Told you already. Cleaning up my drawers."

She let her chin drop on her arms, resting on her desk-top and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Gibbs is 'cleaning up his drawers'. How about you, Tony?"

A curious wondering, an innocent question, a hurtful explanation, an unwelcome answer.

"I'm catching up on my gaming." He offered, turning back to the computer. This time, McGee rolled his eyes.

"The key's behind the book." He told Tony, eying the screen from his five-feet-away position.

Barely glancing at him, Tony clicked something, frowning in suspicion at whatever it was. Then he swiveled in his chair toward McGee. "How did you know that?"

"You never bother to read the instructions before starting a game. I do. And you call that gaming?" He snorted, standing up and hovering over his shoulder. Apparently, the cat was out of the bag and it was pointless to pretend there were still things to do at the Yard that required their presence. "The rest of the five-year-olds who play it can do it better than you." Then he suddenly squinted intently at the screen, as if he'd seen something. "No, wait – I think you just passed the door." So much for children's games.

"Tell me something, McGee." Tony commented casually, jerking the mouse forward abruptly. "If only kids play this, how come _you_ know the how-to?"

McGee ignored him. "Go right. That one's got a gun."

"Really? There any hostages?"

McGee and Tony both did a three-sixty, one standing, the other sitting, to come face to face with Gibbs' raised eyebrows. "You think that if I shoot it, it'll solve the kids' games' problem?"

"Yeah, you know, I think I got enough guns in real life, don't need any more." Tony said, at the same time that McGee stuttered something about shutting everything down. The computer powered down and the screen blinked out of life, but Gibbs was already sitting down again, and the two male agents had a new pain to rub at on their heads.

When the two of them turned to her, she held up her hands with a smile. "I never forget what I'm taught. I'm not supposed to warn you."

And now they didn't have anything to do (and they hadn't even been doing something they _should_ do in a workplace in the first place) and they had slightly apprehensive eyes.

So Bishop decided to both give them what they wanted and make them uncomfortable while she was at it. "So, why don't you want to go home again, Tony?"

Well, now they were having a conversation. It would be rude to leave in the middle of that, wouldn't it?

"I've told you already. The five-year-olds need me to beat them."

"DiNozzo, I'm still hoping that, someday, you'll realize head-slaps really aren't good for you. Stop asking for them." Gibbs said, turning a drawer upside down so that pounds (and Bishop didn't think she was exaggerating) of what could only be considered tree genocide fell on his tabletop. Bishop watched as he stared silently at the paper, as if testing out a version of his glare on inanimate objects. She could only assume it hadn't worked, because two seconds later he was unceremoniously and indiscriminately shoving every last bit of paperwork into the plastic bin next to his desk.

By now, Bishop had learned not to question certain things, such as whether her boss ought to be throwing away what looked like official documents. She thought she'd been able to glimpse a file, wide open, with blaring red letters informing the world that it was classified.

That was (hopefully) probably her imagination.

"I think that comment alone deserved deep contemplation and reflection right there." Tony reclaimed the room's attention the way he was prone to.

"You know," McGee interrupted, half in an attempt to prevent any more unfortunate DiNozzo comments, half in a kind of shrewd subject change (which worked against Bishop, of course). "you're still here too, Bishop, and you don't seem in any particular hurry to leave either."

Yes, that _was _a good point. Precisely why she had rooted for it not to come up.

She shrugged, a little uncomfortable. No matter the fact that she'd been with them for two years – what could possible compare to McGee's twelve? Tony had fourteen under his belt, and God forbid her from wondering how long Gibbs had been doing this. "I'm just not… in a very Christmassy mood right now." She hesitated, and avoided anyone's eyes as she ploughed on. "My husband's on a work trip, and this will be our first Christmas separate."

She had a funny feeling that her reason paled (so much) in comparison to what could possibly be upsetting Gibbs or Tony, and was definitely tame when put up against McGee's, but it was her excuse, and she was sticking with it.

Tony shrugged, and Bishop was instinctively expecting a smart-pants answer in return. And that was unprecedented, because Tony… Well, despite McGee's assurances, she had never seen any hint of the attention-seeking, party-clown, goofy man-child he was claimed to be. And today, that behavior seemed normal to her, like he'd made some kind of reversion. And that was all strange, because psychology was interesting to her, and Tony was a psychological wonder. But, out of respect for his privacy, she wasn't going to profile him.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm sure he just needs some time and space to settle his beef with his apparently terrible inner-self." He didn't disappoint.

She didn't even have the opportunity or the time to turn her startled expression into stuttered words before McGee interrupted him for her.

"Tony." He warned quietly.

Tony heeded him, a hint of something darker in his expression, shrugging it off with practiced ease.

Bishop stared from one to the other. "Am I missing something?" She wondered, sneaking a glance at Gibbs. He was still focused on his work, but something told her the muscles on his back were a little tenser than they had been.

"Nothing at all." Tony gave her a charming grin – again, not something she'd associate with the behavior he'd shown her in the last two years.

Bishop glanced at McGee to find him meticulously voiding her gaze. "Okay." She agreed slowly. "If you don't want to tell me, I'm not going to make you." She shrugged, making a point of letting her hurt pout and puppy-dog eyes briefly flash in Tony's direction. "I just thought we were a team."

Tony groaned, and Bishop could have sworn she saw Gibbs' lips twitching. She'd succeeded, even if her achievement was an apparently unwelcome one to the rest of the MCRT. No matter how unpredictable Tony's mood was right then, she could always count on the fact that, since she'd met him, she'd never seen him purposefully upset someone, not even on a particular bad day. (And yet, although she didn't know for herself, McGee's rare and random venting sessions always gave her the impression that before – and before _what_, she didn't know – Tony hadn't cared particularly about that, which just left her all the more confused. She preferred to think of the behavior DiNozzo was having now as abnormal, even with McGee's implications that, for the ten years he'd known Tony previously, it had been very much normal.)

"I don't like to talk about it-" Tony began hotly.

"Don't like to talk about it for two years." McGee muttered, and Bishop got the feeling that maybe they were all feeling very, very stressed and touchy and edgy and their tempers were running high. Because she had _never _heard McGee be so blatantly snappish to Tony. As a matter of fact, she'd always thought of the two of them as best friends.

So she stared in wide-eyed jumpiness, as Tony narrowed his eyes at a wincing McGee, who was already looking apologetic.

"Knock it off, you two." Gibbs' gruff voice made the three of them turn to him (that was instinct – when Gibbs spoke, his team listened). He glowered at Tony and McGee, cutting their own facial expressions short. "I'm not running a kindergarten here. You're not five years old. Bicker on your own time."

"Technically, this kinda is our time-"

"Then go home."

Nobody moved a muscle.

Looking satisfied, Gibbs returned to the disposing of documents that was keeping him apparently well-entertained. Bishop analyzed the two men left intently, dropping her chin on her arms. They were not looking at each other anymore, but Tony's hand was squeezing the mouse more than it was grabbing it, and McGee was chewing on the inside of his cheek with a frown.

This wasn't the first time this subject had come up. Bishop was anything but dumb, and she could connect the dots. She could see, sometimes, when Tony's back muscles contracted (and stayed that way) and he frowned and kept silent for a while, and when Gibbs started shortening his sentences (so much that she was surprised to hear more than one word leave is mouth at a time), and when McGee stuck his bottom lip out in a pout and stuck to his computer like he was autistic, that _That Thing _had come up.

She'd named it That Thing because that was all she knew about it. It was some sort of taboo, like a storm that could be called if someone used the wrong word, took the wrong action course, had the wrong attitude. She'd triggered it a couple of times, and the worst part was that she couldn't avoid it because she didn't know what _it _was. One time it was because she had misworded 'no use crying about spilt milk', the other because she had jumped a few curbs in her rush to get to a backup-less McGee in a suspect's house. She'd parked and Tony had gotten out of the car without a word. He'd stayed annoyed at her all day, which really had stung her. She hadn't even known what she'd done, still didn't.

_That Thing _had become a possibility of a consequence that could derivate from anything she might do, and she'd learned to accept and live with that. She'd also learned to respect That Thing, whatever it was. It only pissed her off that the only thing she knew about it was that it upset Tony the most, out of all the members of the team.

Which was probably why that, in her slightly sleep-deprived state, she was suddenly determined to find out all about it on Christmas Eve. Well, that, and also because she was curious as to why it was suddenly keeping Tony from enjoying Christmas, after two years.

"So…" She prompted, already knowing that this was going to take more than her usual persuading methods. "You were saying?"

Tony looked up at her in confusion, realizing that the fact that she was staring at him probably meant she was talking to him. "At the risk of sounding like the beginning of a ghost horror movie, I didn't say anything."

"About why you weren't going home."

Tony rolled his eyes, looking disappointed at her lousy attempt to get him to speak. "I wasn't saying anything of the kind. And, surprisingly, still have no intention to." And his tone of short finality conveyed that that would be the end of it.

If only Bishop were keener on leaving things be. Her previous plan of making Tony feel bad about not telling her would have actually worked, if Gibbs and McGee hadn't put a stop to it.

"You know, McGee and I shared." She offered. "It's only fair that you share too."

Tony scowled. "McGee doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut."

"Tony-" McGee started, crossing his arms as if in defiance (or protection).

"It's none of your business. It's none of McGee's business either." Tony interrupted, and McGee clenched his teeth, as if biting his tongue. He obviously disagreed.

Bishop let the silence fall, because Tony was obviously not in control of his mouth and would apologize whenever he was feeling better. But for now the senior agent was not bothering to look at any of them (and the lack of noise from her left told her that Gibbs had left his papers to join the heavy conversation too) and there wasn't a hint of remorse on his face.

So Bishop decided to take matters into her own hands. She leaned forward, widening her eyes just a little, as if it would make meeting Tony's gaze easier. "Well, I can profile you instead. Let's see." Suddenly she was all business, analyzing him with the expert and detached eye of a skilled observer, like he was an interesting sample underneath a microscope's lens. Respect for his privacy had just flown out the window (that was mostly why she wasn't bothered by the fact that she was doing this right in front of two of their coworkers), and Bishop concentrated on Tony, his psyche, and what she'd learned and picked up from him during the time that she'd worked with the man.

"Everything I know about you tells me you hate exposing your feelings, which is why you're being so snappish and why, on a normal day, you love to joke off more personal questions. That leaves serious commitment issues clearly visible, but that's not something that bothers you particularly, which is interesting, and filed for later. Now, those were just parts of your normal personality. McGee's mentioned a couple of times that you've changed, and sometimes I can see that some things you do still surprise certain people.

"A behavioral shift so drastic means there has to have been some sort of sudden event that gave you a different perspective on yourself and your life. The way you act _now_, and McGee's description of how you _used_ to act are extremely different, and also very characteristic of hurt, resentful individuals. And yet, I think you're very peaceful with your predicament, almost as if you don't expect it to last. So maybe you're relying on a promise of something else. But that's more far-fetched speculation than anything.

"But no matter your understanding, you're struggling for patience, and it seems to be wearing thin today. I don't know why, but what I do know is that something must have happened for you to be that way, because you don't suddenly snap after so long. And I say so long, because I've been here for two years, which means that whatever happened has to have happened over two years ago, and I consider that a respectful amount of time. Actually, I think I can do better than that. In the beginning of my working here, everyone seemed more edgy and wary around you, which tells me that the wound was fresh back then, which puts whatever happened to you to leave you like this around two years ago.

"For all that and taking into heavy consideration what McGee said about you and your ex-womanizing ways, I'm going to assume that this all comes down to one thing: a woman. I understand that, when I came, I came to replace your _female_ partner-"

"Okay, you know what, that's enough." Tony hastily interrupted, his chest heaving as if he'd been the one making a speech. Inwardly, she raised her fist in triumph. She'd touched a sore spot. He glared at her. "I'm already exhausted just of hearing you talk."

The three of them had been staring, open-mouthed (okay, so Gibbs had just stared), at her in stunned fascination while she ranted about a dramatized (soap-opera-ed?) version of Tony's thoughts and feelings. Up until she'd reached the part about his partner, Tony seemed more amused than annoyed, and that had escalated when she had. Now he _was _annoyed, and a lot more than that too.

"But I'm not even halfway done!" She protested, even if it was an empty promise. Tony glared harshly back. "So, your partner, right?" She frowned, oblivious to the wary glances that were no longer only Tony's. "I should have suspected that. You never talk about her. I don't even know what her story is. Her name was… Diva? No, it definitely started with a 'Z'… Zilia? Zi-"

"Ziva." Tony snapped, and Bishop congratulated herself. She'd done it. Of course she'd known her name (curiosity was not a sin, and Bishop had looked the woman up to see whose shoes she was filling – and was unsurprised to find that, from what she remembered reading, besides having pretty big shoes, she was exactly the kind of person DiNozzo would fall for), but she'd wanted to push him to the edge, because it was at the edge that people were more truthful and open. He would definitely be feeling more talkative now. "And maybe this is about her. I still don't see how it makes it your business."

Bishop leaned back again. "Well, I'm a nice person. I like it when my friends are happy."

"Well, I'm happy. I'm real happy. You wanna know what would make me even happier?"

"If she were here tonight?"

The question threw him off-guard, and his 'if you dropped it' reply got lost somewhere along his throat.

He stared at her in the heavy silence, struggling to find a witty, joking response, which, of course, was exactly what she expected him to do. But that didn't really hold any weight in whether he would or not do it. "What are you, my shrink?" He asked weakly – suddenly, he was too tired to be so pissed off anymore. "Cut the psycho-analysis."

She ignored him. "What I don't get is what happened? Why are you like this _now_?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he just stared at her like he couldn't believe she was being so meddlesome. In truth, she couldn't believe it either, but he'd annoyed her, and now she had no qualms about this. The late hour and general moodiness that had resulted from her husband's absence probably helped too.

So she just raised an eyebrow, silently daring him, wondering if he'd go ahead and offer her an honest reply. And, since she knew Tony didn't back down from challenges, she was pleased but not surprised to see him, furrowing his brows in an effort to contain the emotions she knew were begging to break free and dance across his face, answer her in a tight voice. "Let's consider that, maybe, _hypothetically_, you might be right. Let's assume that that very slim chance is a given truth." He began, slowly. "Maybe something did happen. Maybe she gave a sign of life after two years, and _maybe _that's been driving me crazy all night. If that were true, would you accept it as an answer and leave me alone?"

Bishop had no opportunity to answer.

"She _what_?"

Tony winced slightly, turning to the wide-eyed McGee with an unreadable expression. "She sent me an e-mail, McSqueal-"

"She sent you an _e-mail_?" McGee yelped, looking affronted. "She hasn't contacted _anybody _in _two years_! And you didn't think this was worth mentioning?!"

"What did it say?" Gibbs was the first one to cut to the chase, putting a stop to his mute marathon.

McGee's squeals died out, Bishop's urge to answer Tony's question disappeared, and they were all staring at DiNozzo expectantly. He stared back, and he looked like he was making a tremendous effort not to speak.

"You look like you're on the truth serum again." McGee mumbled, probably hoping to get a reaction out of the senior agent.

But all Tony did was roll his eyes – and yet, McGee's endeavor yielded results: Tony reluctantly decided to speak. "Not much. All very cryptic, all very Ziva, all very eight years of the same. I've gotten good at deciphering her messages." He shared, like some private joke.

"What did this message say?" Gibbs ploughed on, crossing his arms and leaning back. That was when Bishop realized Tony wasn't getting out of this one without a straight answer, and, from Tony's grimace, so had he.

"She… She says she misses m- She says she misses the team, and DC. Says that she went to Berlin, and that, when she got there, she didn't think of Bodnar, she thought- she thought of dancing."

Bishop didn't point out that, while the first statement seemed like a conclusion which Tony had retrieved from that cryptic message, the second one was a direct transcription, like he hadn't analyzed it, but he'd found it important enough to mention anyway. Her acquired knowledge on Ziva David told her that Bodnar was the man who had killed her father, and that she had killed Bodnar. Tony had said that Ziva 'had a beef with herself'. One could assume that that meant that this self-discovery journey Ziva was undertaking was to fight that killer part of her. And, looking around the NCIS HQ, Bishop realized that Ziva couldn't have done that in a Federal Agency.

And if Bodnar represented killing, and she had chosen dancing over that, she could see how Tony's head was going crazy with the possibilities that that might entail. If it were Bishop, her thoughts would jump to the idea that she might be done with being away.

And when she finished that train of thought, she was exhausted of thinking, period. She couldn't even remember her reasoning, much less her conclusion. Honestly, that exhaustion was Tony's fault. It derived from her trying to figure him out. He could have saved her the trouble if he'd just outright said what he was feeling already.

Tony hesitated, fiddling with some sheet on his desk. "I think… I think she's here, Boss." He looked up at Gibbs. "I'm not sure, but I think she's been here for a few hours."

Gibbs' answer was his usual stare, but Bishop was starting to see the magnitude and gravity of all this from what was transpiring on McGee's face. And she was glad, even if no one else was, that she had started this conversation, that she had made possible for Tony to open up and talk about this, because it was very obviously and very painfully eating him up inside. But her part was over – now it was her boss' turn. This had to be done carefully, because Tony might suddenly decide to clam up and laugh it off, and that couldn't happen.

"What does all that tell you, Tony?" Gibbs finally asked.

The use of his first name seemed to go unnoticed by no one. "I- I don't know." Tony muttered, his fingers more frantic on the paper.

"You sure? What does your gut tell you?"

Tony's jaw tightened, and the paper got more rumpled than ever. "My gut is too biased by- by Paris, and Berlin, and Israel-"

"Tony." Gibbs interrupted. "_What do you think it means?_"

Tony's hands went still. The paper dropped to the desk. He and Gibbs engaged in a staring contest that Bishop had only ever gotten to see a couple of times. It was a battle of wills, but it wasn't their usual battle of wills. Normally, Tony didn't use a weapon as powerful as his need to protect his feelings in a staring contest with Gibbs.

But, whenever he did use that weapon, those battles were the only ones Bishop had ever known Tony to sometimes win against Gibbs. But not this time. Gibbs won, and Tony spoke truthfully. "I think she might be staying, Gibbs. For good."

McGee cleared his throat, looking alarmed, as Gibbs stared at Tony, still saying nothing. "Tony, it'd be great if it is true, but you shouldn't- I mean, you're not sure if it's…"

Tony snorted, but didn't look up at McGee. "If you're worried I'll get my hopes up too high and then fall and hurt myself, don't worry, McFret. I'm pretty much used to scrapping my knees."

McGee thinned his lips, like that (shockingly) didn't reassure him at all. Bishop liked that, even though Tony had been very mightily pissed off at McGee just minutes before, the younger agent was still willing to offer advice, still 'fretting' about Tony and his potentially harmful feelings. Even if it sounded a little like McGee was mothering Tony. (Which she knew Tony had picked up on, even though he hadn't called McGee out on it.)

And she could finally see the extent to which Tony was really hurt. This wasn't just some flesh wound that would heal (and she had no doubt that he'd had plenty of his share of those as well), but something that would show if one looked at him properly.

And that annoyed her, because… "But," She protested. "you always seemed fine!" Well, most of the time, anyway.

He gave her a self-mocking, indulgent smile, and Bishop was left to see the man behind the barrier for the first time. She wondered how she had missed all this. "Fine's a great word. She used it a lot. Usually when she wasn't. That became a bit of a problem. Then it became the I-hate-myself-so-I'm-going-to-leave-to-try-and-change-who-I-am-without-any-explanation-whatsoever-to-anybody problem. That was a big problem, by the way."

"You ramble when you're in pain."

"Well, you should see him on painkillers." McGee was firmly determined to find their light-hearted way out of this conversation. But no such luck. Gibbs wouldn't let him.

"What are you still doing here, DiNozzo?" Gibbs said to the silence that followed the unsuccessful comic relief attempt, staring at Tony with raised eyebrows and a promise of faith – he had faith that maybe, getting his feelings harmed was a good enough risk for him to see Ziva again. And, maybe, he had faith in Tony and this Ziva, this woman whom Bishop had never met but was listening to (and even participating in) a heavy conversation about.

"Because I might scrape my knees." Tony muttered in response, running a hand through his hair and leaning back.

"Kelly loved climbing trees. Because of that, she scrapped her knees a lot too."

Bishop got the feeling that Gibbs had just said something big. McGee and Tony were completely still, as if standing on a landmine, and, exchanging the barest of glances between themselves, they looked at Gibbs like _he _was the landmine and they were waiting for him to explode.

But Gibbs didn't explode. He just crossed his arms with two raised eyebrows at his male agents. Bishop stared at each one in turn, hoping to get an answer to the question that was apparently present on her mind only. And when she didn't get that, she went vocal. "Who's Kelly?"

Well, obviously, what she'd said was even worse. Tony and McGee turned their heads to her in alarm, and she was just waiting to see if they'd start shaking their heads and making cutting motions against their throats like in cartoons, for her to cut it out. But they didn't. Instead, they brought out their nervous tics (two years with them were enough for her to be able to identify them).

McGee's hand blindly reached for his keyboard, and he tapped on its edge like it was some sort of lifeline. She started to get that this situation might go a little sideways. Tony, of course, decided on a more frontal approach, because, like everything else in him, his tic was loud. It was also his way of dealing with everything – he started to spout stupid cracks.

"Bishop, what have I told you about meddling? Honestly, looking at you, someone would think I didn't give you the proper education." He mock-scolded her, giving the room an opening to change the subject.

The room didn't take it. Instead, Gibbs just leaned back in his chair and gave her one of his penetrating looks, the kind of looks that could make her drop the subject if he really wanted to.

But he mustn't have wanted her to enough, apparently, because the only thing the look made her was mildly uncomfortable, and that wasn't enough to quiet her curiosity.

"I'm going for coffee." Gibbs was the first one to break eye contact, and he was out of the room faster than she could blink.

"What was that about?" Bishop exclaimed, looking from one frowning coworker to the other.

"That was Gibbs giving us the opportunity to fill you in while he's not here to witness it." Tony informed her, exchanging a glance with McGee. He stood up and walked around his desk, leaning against its front with two crossed arms. "So. Do you really think you want to be filled in?"

Bishop blinked. "Yes. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked, right?"

Tony shrugged. "Suit yourself. But just remember that I gave you the opportunity to back down while you still could-"

"Take the drama down a peg, will you, DiNozzo?" McGee asked tiredly. He rubbed his forehead and gave her a bitter smile. "How many times do you know Gibbs to have been married?"

"Three." She answered with no hesitation. This was a motive of giggling gossip in the ladies room sometimes. She was confident of her answer.

"Four." Tony corrected her.

"Excuse me?"

"He was married four times." McGee repeated.

Frowning, she glanced from one to the other for any signs of bluffing. "He always says he's got three alimonies to pay-"

"He wouldn't pay any alimonies to a deceased spouse, would he?" Tony interrupted her in a small voice.

Bishop's quiet 'oh' wasn't registered or voluntary. "So Kelly is his late wife?"

"No, Kelly is- was his eight-year-old daughter. She and her mother – Gibbs' first wife – both passed away in a car accident." McGee's tone told Bishop that there was a lot more to that story than she thought, but that it would be wise not to pursue it.

"That's terrible." Bishop could feel her lips quivering slightly and turning down, but she tried to keep her mind from imagining a little girl with open blue eyes in a car crash, because she was prone to do that.

"Yeah." Tony agreed. "And there's just about nothing that would make him purposefully mention either of them. Which is the only reason we're explaining this to you."

Bishop didn't take offence at that. If she were in Tony's shoes (or worse, in Gibbs' shoes), she wouldn't want to talk about it either. "Okay." She accepted slowly. "Then why did he?"

Tony shrugged, and McGee just gave her one of his idea-less look. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Just then, Gibbs came back, entering the bullpen with the ease of a practiced selective thinker. He ignored the obnoxious elephant in the room and made his way to his desk with the cool his agents were not showing. There was only one bothering thing in that picture, because Gibbs held no coffee in hand.

"Something on your mind, Bishop?" He casually asked, and Bishop couldn't tell if that was a premeditated question or if it just derived from the way she was staring at him.

"Uh- No. I-" She hesitated, wondering whether she should say something (and, more than to put his mind at ease, to put her own), but then she deflated, giving up. "No."

"DiNozzo." He called, switching his attention from one of his agents to another as quickly as he could drain a cup of coffee. "Next time I ask you to leave, I get to kick you out. Literately."

But Tony hesitated. Bishop was suddenly pointedly aware that she hadn't even touched the tip of the iceberg when it came to Tony's story with his partner. And she was curious to know the rest. And right then, Tony looked more willing to open up about all that than he did to go home.

But when Gibbs took off his glasses and stared at Tony as if about to make good on his threat, he scrambled to collect all his things and leave – it wasn't as if it looked like he had a choice.

"So, do you think this will end well?" Bishop didn't beat around the bush when she wanted to know something.

The three of them stared after Tony at the closed elevator doors, pondering her question in silence. Eventually, McGee shook himself out of his stupor, sitting back at his desk (from where she didn't know he'd gotten up). He snorted. "With those two, I'm never sure." He told her. "And two years ago, _that_ would have been forbidden to say."

Gibbs snorted, which startled McGee. "I don't think admitting their stupidity to each other is an issue any longer."

"I think now it's mostly the abandonment, trust and commitment issues." McGee nodded, ticking off the list from his fingers. "That _is_ good." He admitted. "Five years ago, I couldn't count on the fingers of my hands the amount of problems they had."

She frowned at them. "You're treating this like it's some sort of seriously sensitive, edgy, almost taboo-like sort of subject." She narrowed her eyes to herself. "And you've influenced me with that. Why?"

McGee leaned forward, crossing his arms on his desktop. "You're right." He said, and he only sounded a little surprised. "But I can't answer your question. I don't know. When Ziva left, it just felt a little like a- a break-up, of sorts." He tilted his head to one side. "You were not allowed to mention her at all in his vicinity, you had to reach the limit of patience and understanding with the two of them, and weird coping behavior was expected. Yeah, _exactly _like a break-up."

"So now that she's home…" She trailed off.

McGee confirmed her thoughts. "I miss her like hell, but I'm _not_ going near the two of them tonight. Which is why you're not allowed to tell Abby Ziva might be in town." He warned. "She'd run to track her down like a dog with a bone."

"Maybe I should tell her you're still at the Navy Yard instead, McGee." Gibbs, as always, chose what he thought was the appropriate moment to intervene in the conversation in some other way than being a functional mute. "Let her decide you _need _to spend Christmas with her and her Goth-friendly companions."

McGee was out of his chair so fast Bishop missed most of the movement. "I'll go see if I can talk my sister into at least spending Christmas in my apartment." And he was heading to the elevator and disappearing behind the metal.

"Abby's friends can't be that bad!" Bishop protested. "She has that whole Goth thing, but she's mellow as a puppy on the inside!"

Gibbs peered at her from over his glasses. "Just remember – McGee's met them, you haven't, and he isn't usually prejudiced about people."

That silenced her.

"You're doing well in making everyone leave before you." She commented after a while (because, although he could withstand a long time without speaking, she couldn't), not bothering with any beating around the bush that neither of them ever used (although she didn't use it for very different reasons than that of his).

The corner of his lips that she could see twitched, and he looked up at her with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah. Thought the silent approach was leaving you uncomfortable enough for you to take off too."

It was going to be harder than that. Her family was all in Oklahoma (and her job had assured her that she wouldn't be going there today), and her friends had all chosen this year to leave DC for the holidays.

A faint prickling on the window glass caught her ears' attention, and she looked outside to see that it was beginning to rain. Keeping her eyes on the trickling water, she thought she might as well address what they were trying to avoid. "Why do people make it harder to stay together, Gibbs?"

He didn't answer for a long time, and she began to think that he either hadn't heard her, or was pretending not to have heard her. But then she listened to the rustling of papers, a pair of glasses hitting the wood of the desk and the chair whining like someone was standing up. It wasn't long before she felt Gibbs' presence next to her desk.

"Don't know." He replied honestly and slowly. "Sometimes they don't have a say in it. Other times it's a matter of pride."

"And the rest of them?" She questioned, because she was still unsatisfied with the answer.

"The rest… make choices." He placed both his hands on her desk, leaning on them and looking down. "Then they have to live with them."

"How do people know if they're making the right ones?" She asked, fingering a necklace that her husband had given her God-knew how many millennia ago.

"If they did, no one would ever choose wrong."

"Have you ever chosen wrong, Gibbs?"

Gibbs paused, realizing he couldn't just walk away from this one. He dragged his chair to sit next to Bishop's desk, and attempted to catch her eyes with no luck. "Several times."

She looked at him briefly. "Ever make it right again?"

He shook his head. "No."

She let silence fall after that word, wondering whether he'd decide to cut the conversation short now that he had an opportunity to do so. To her surprise he stayed right there.

"Tell me…" She hesitated, biting her lip and questioning whether she was finally pushing it too far. "Tell me something you've chosen wrong."

He didn't answer for a long time, which made her think he wasn't going to at all.

"When Kelly was four," He began – his voice would have been considered quiet had they not been in a mostly empty building. "she made me promise something. I had to have left this career, my association with the Navy, behind, by the time she turned thirty-three." He shrugged. "She was young, and it was her mother's thirty-third birthday. Guess it was what she could come up with, because she wanted me around more often, and in one piece. Today, Kelly would have been thirty-three."

Throughout all of this, Bishop listened intently, head finally turned to face him and his dark expression. In the end, however, she cleared her throat, trying not to show how agitated the speech had made her. "You didn't fail her-"

"Never said I did."

"You didn't have to."

He tilted his head with a little (painful) smirk, acknowledging it. "Maybe not. But that was an example of a wrong choice. One which I have no intention of making right."

She let the silence comfort the two of them, because Gibbs needed it to get his emotions in check, and she needed it because she had no idea of what to say. "Sometimes…" She hesitated, quietly squirming in her seat. "Sometimes people have to make the wrong choices to have the option of making the right ones in the future."

The stare in Gibbs' eyes told her to elaborate. "You can't honestly say, Gibbs, that if you got up from that chair and quit right now, there wouldn't be a murderer getting away scott-free tomorrow."

"And- you should stop avoiding going home too."

There was a hint of a ghost of a smile on his face, she was sure of it. "And you should stop avoiding not being hypocritical."

Her lips twitched. "I'll get out of this chair when you get out of yours."

He snorted, but he was smiling, and that was a welcome sight, compared to the scowling, frowning, permanently dark expression he'd been wearing all day.

He gave up first.

"C'mon." He sighed, standing up. "The weather's awful outside. I'll drive you home." And then, in a twisty (and maybe somewhat vindictive) change of mood, he smirked, pushing the button to call the elevator. "I'll give DiNozzo an early wake-up call for him to pick you up in the morning. I get the feeling that's the only way he's gonna get out of bed tomorrow."

* * *

The clock on Tony's bedside table blinked when all its numbers turned to zero. It was midnight, and it rang a Christmas tune against the howling and splattering outside, because Tony was like that.

A sleepy, female hand clumsily reached around until the lights were off and the music mute.

"Tony." She grumbled. "Next time that happens, I might decide that I'm not done with the life of a killer yet after all."

And Tony smiled against his pillow, and his smile was hidden, but she knew it was there. Just like he knew she was there without seeing her. "Nah. You wouldn't make Gibbs leave his basement to investigate _my _death on Christmas." He turned bleary eyes to the Israeli brunette sliding back down the covers next to him. "You're not that heartless, Ziva." And he (and she) liked the way the name breathed through his lips.

And she grinned under her disheveled hair, because she couldn't possibly be in the mood to be mad at him right now. She'd come back yesterday, after all. _Must be the jet lag._

"Hey." He called at her. She made the effort to lift her eyelids, and he smiled with dimpled cheeks in response. "Merry Christmas."

She nuzzled his stubble, suddenly not quite so sleepy, or so grumpy. "Merry Christmas, Tony."

And, besides - it was Christmas.


End file.
